By the Light of a Lie (Thane & Calder Book 1)

by Marjorie Orr

  Tire blinked, feeling her chest pinch with a stab of anger. ‘And you thought you’d meet your end to the strains of your mad mother,’ she snapped, pointing to the stereo.

  He gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘The curse of the House of Atreus,’ he said. ‘It does have a certain resonance, I would have to admit.’

  Herk was edging towards the door and Stone, although he showed no signs of moving.

  ‘Erica Smythson?’ Tire said steadily. ‘You said you had the name here.’

  ‘And you believe everything you’re told, do you?’ he sneered, putting a hand up to support himself on the doorframe.

  A sickly sweet, fruity smell mixed with stale sweat wafted off him, making her want to gag. She tried not to breathe in and said: ‘You lied to me yesterday?’

  A wooden chair scraped on the stone floor as he sat down heavily. ‘She was proving to be a nuisance. If she had been successful in getting Greengate off, it would have opened a can of worms that threatened my reputation. He had found out about the Mexican drug facility. My son had carelessly left papers lying around. He framed him in the most asinine way possible. I could not believe the police fell for it. And I had pressure brought to bear on Greengate to plead guilty to protect his son.’

  ‘So why lie yesterday?’

  A skeletal hand, with bulging purple veins, ran through his wispy hair. The expression on his face was, for the first time, tinged with embarrassment. ‘I needed to give my son time to escape. He left for South America last night.’

  Hell and damnation. He raised a hand.

  ‘You can save your energy trying to get him extradited. He has several ailments due to his unusual birth. He won’t make old bones.’

  ‘Inbreeding, you mean?’

  ‘Call it as you please. It won’t affect me. He has enough money to live well for a couple of years, which might be as long as he has.’ His eyes wandered over to the single bed in the corner and his shoulders drooped. She needed more.

  ‘Wrighton? He had nothing to do with Erica’s death?’

  ‘That fool? He’s capable of organising nothing. He couldn’t even protect himself against my son, who has taken his money and left him with some very angry friends whose investments have also disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘How did you persuade Erica to come to Hammersmith in the early hours?’ she said quietly, digging her nails into her hand to keep her anger under control.

  He moved across to sit heavily on the chair in front of the desk and hung his head, breathing heavily. ‘Easy,’ he wheezed. ‘I knew she was having an affair with the lawyer Crumley so I got him drunk and then told one of my aides to phone her and request help for him. She never hesitated, stupid fool. He blacked out and remembered nothing of that evening.’

  ‘Which of your thugs was driving?’ she pressed on.

  Another short cackle. ‘You won’t get him. He died in Spain ten days back. Anton. He was a bastard like me, from Romania originally, brought up in a Russian orphanage.’ His elbow, leaning on the table, was pressing hard to keep him upright.

  Muffled squawks and squeals from the colony of seabirds, nesting on the cliff below and occasionally flitting past the window, penetrated through the thick glass. The buffeting of the wind was growing stronger. She lit a cigarette, ignoring his irritated cough, and said: ‘Was it all worth it? Scrabbling just to get to the top of the dung heap?’

  ‘Scrabbling?’ he said faintly, still managing to sound dismissive.

  ‘You must have been desperate to be taken as an equal, mixing with the great and the good. Or was it all a game so you could laugh at them? The ones you suckered with your charitable piety.’

  His trembling had turned into spasmodic shivering and his face was ashen grey. She reached down onto the bed and pulled up a rug and threw it across him. He tugged at it ineffectually, but managed finally to wrap it round himself.

  ‘You think too much,’ he said, looking abstractedly into the corner of the room. ‘Motives are never as clear-cut as you imagine. I needed to survive and keep my mother safe. That took money. I discovered how easy it was and everything else followed. I never expected to get this far. With my kind of childhood you are surprised when you get through each day.’

  Not that different from the Mexican Sanchez, she thought. Living like a hyena.

  His exhaustion was beginning to pull her down so she moved further down the wall away from him, closer to Herk, taking a few deep breaths to clear her head. ‘What do you think your elite friends will say when they find out about you?’

  He levered himself to his feet and walked unsteadily to the door without looking at her, saying over his shoulder: ‘I won’t be here to care, will I?’ Gesturing to Herk to get out of his way, he moved out of the doorway and started to climb slowly up the next spiral of stairs.

  After five steps, he stopped and said over his shoulder: ‘My influential friends in government won’t let you tell my story, you know. Too damaging for them and you have no real proof. They’ll smear you, put pressure on newspaper proprietors. You might manage a conspiracy website. You’ll see. My reputation will remain intact.’ He laughed roughly then, three steps later, added: ‘Turn the music on as you leave.’

  Herk pulled her arm, muttering: ‘That’s the best advice I’ve heard. This place could be booby-trapped. C’mon.’

  He picked up the remote control and switched ‘Elektra’ back on, loosing the vengeful howls and shrieks of the singer to pulsate against the stone walls. Tire, unnerved by Stone’s jibe of no evidence, tugged at the locked drawers on the desk. She pulled out her pocket knife and levered it in the crack until the wood split, but nothing budged. Herk pushed her aside, pulled a chisel from a trouser pocket, jammed it into the gap she had created and smashed down on it with a clenched fist. The front of the top drawer came away, exposing documents, several leather-bound pads and three flash memory sticks. She grabbed a canvas travel bag lying in the corner and shovelled the contents in, then kicked the lower drawers hard until they came free. A laptop was in one. The other was full of pills, which she left.

  Down the worn stairs, pursued by the soprano’s violent screams and the crescendoing clamour of an anguished orchestral score, they exited quickly and ran towards the rough track to the right of the building. The music mercifully faded as they moved further away. Resisting a temptation to turn round, Tire followed Herk to the first rise in the ground as the trail bent round a huge boulder.

  They lay down behind it, panting for breath. She clutched the bag to her chest as if it was a child in need of protection. Herk tugged at his ears, as if to clear an annoying blockage, and raised his head above the massive chunk of granite. Resting his camera on the top and adjusting the focus, he started clicking.

  Stone was back on the ruined roof, still wrapped in the blanket, facing away from them out to sea. The wind tugged at his white hair, standing it up in spikes and creating a ghostly aura round his head. The music bellowed and moaned, merging into the sea birds’ calls, to create a babel of piercing cries.

  A flash of brown to her right pulled her gaze away and she saw the skua heading for the figure on the tower. Its five-foot wing span skimmed it effortlessly up and through the broken wall on the nearside. It dragged its claws across his head, pitching him forward, then continued out to sea to circle round for another attack. He stumbled forward into a higher portion of the wall, holding a hand to his stomach, bent forward, obviously in pain. After a moment he disappeared out of sight, then re-emerged, holding onto the top stone with one hand and with a handgun in the other. As the skua came close he held the gun over his head and fired. Feathers went flying.

  ‘Bastard,’ she muttered.

  But the bird managed to gain height and sheered off to the far end of the cliff edge, where it landed and shook itself vigorously, dislodging a few more feathers. Stone then raised the gun to his head and fired again. He crumpled out of sight. The singer ground relentlessly on.

  ‘He’s gone,’ remarked Herk i
n a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Now let’s go.’

  ‘Do you not think?’

  ‘No, I don’t. The police can sort all that out. And we should get to the car before that damned crater comes circling back round.’ As she looked across, the skua gave a few experimental hops and then, satisfied all was in working order, took off over the cliff edge in the other direction. The mêlée of the opera, and the din of sea birds disturbed by the shots, followed them back to the Range Rover.

  She threw the bag into the back and collapsed against the door, lighting a cigarette with difficulty in the wind, feeling wrung out.

  ‘Inverness?’ she asked.

  ‘Lunch,’ he answered firmly. ‘I’ll text Donnie when we get reception and tell him to stand by.’

  The wind was gusting up to force six as they passed Stoer Lighthouse, breakers crashing against outlying rocks and the cliff base, forming a wide waist of churning white water. Was it really all over? She couldn’t quite believe how much he had admitted and on tape and he was dead.

  Her head was whirring into list-making gear, planning what came next in pulling information together, sorting out a newspaper contract and then a book after that.

  ‘Now I have three questions,’ Herk said, slowing down to allow several sheep to cross the road. ‘Two only need brief answers.’

  She laughed, snuggling back into her seat. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘One, that skewer. And two, that curse of Atreus he was talking about.’

  The heater was beginning to relax her and Herk’s chatter, which she half-suspected was to distract her, was welcome.

  ‘Great skuas are pirates, the locals call them bonxies. They steal other birds’ food and sometimes kill the birds themselves to eat. They’re predators, but very protective of their young.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, for sure. The curse?’

  Sighing heavily, she looked out at the mountain looming on the horizon and said slowly: ‘Long story from Greek mythology.’

  ‘Make it brief,’ he said, tapping a short message into his mobile phone.

  ‘Revenge really, in a nutshell. Each generation of the Atreus family hates the one before. Granddaddy boiled and ate some of his kids. Pa killed a daughter to bring him good luck, then Mother killed him. This opera…’

  ‘Godawful screeching racket,’ he interrupted.

  ‘... is the daughter Elektra wanting her mother dead.’

  The afternoon sun, forcing itself through gaps in the scudding clouds, shone flickering beams on patches of purple heather and russet bracken, drawing colour out of the bleak landscape. A grouse flew low over the moor, disturbed by their passing.

  ‘Aye, well, I can see why it’s a curse. They never get their feet free. Like him.’ He jerked his head backwards.

  She stretched out a leg, tapping her boot on the footrest. ‘I was wondering about that. In the original Aeschylus play, it was the son, Orestes, who saw Ma off and then went mad. Maybe the screech just reminded her of him and his hatred of… her, I suppose, and the world in general. That’s probably what drove him on. Hate is a great motivator.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll have to disentangle his motives.’

  ‘That’s the other question,’ he said swiftly, his face brightening as the small hotel came into view. ‘Will his friends be able to stop you?’

  ‘There is not a snowball’s chance in hell,’ she said fiercely, as they drew up. ‘There’ll be two days’ fulsome compliments in the press when news of his death gets out. Like Robert Maxwell, who was the greatest guy on earth until all the shit emerged. Or Jimmy Savile. Then the vultures will come out to pick over the carrion. They can’t stop it nowadays.’

  ‘I know, I know. With you swooping down for first bite?’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Vultures have a holy mission to keep the world clean,’ she said, nudging him on the arm with her elbow.

  CHAPTER 50

  Donnie was standing on the front step to welcome them with a broad smile on his face and ushered them straight into the dining room. Maggie brought through piping-hot scotch broth and homemade bread, while he listened to Herk’s brief description of seeing and photographing Stone shoot himself on top of the tower.

  ‘Good riddance,’ he said, pouring himself a whisky. Then he looked at Herk, raised one shaggy eyebrow and said with a knowing wink: ‘I don’t suppose you want to be held up by the police for days. Let me phone Callum direct and he might come himself. He never liked the man, so he won’t fuss about why you were there.’

  After finishing the soup, Tire refused the stew that was offered and went upstairs to make phone calls, leaving Herk to cope with Callum, who had promised to turn up in an hour. Twilight was casting deep shadows across the surging waves, obscuring the line between land and sea, with the faint glow of a moon behind clouds above the next headland. Standing at the window, she dialled Ricky’s mobile and wondered how Jimmy would react to the news of his stepfather’s death. He answered instantly, then asked her to wait as he moved to another room.

  ‘Your news first,’ he said, obviously pent up with excitement. ‘We wondered where you’d got to. Jimmy was getting worried.’

  ‘Stone’s dead,’ she said unceremoniously. ‘Shot himself.’

  ‘Wow, that’s great. Jimmy will be so relieved.’ He sighed dramatically and added: ‘And all the rest of us, Wally too.’

  With a wince, she remembered she had not asked Stone who had killed Wally’s nephew. A bat flitted across the road, a black shape barely visible against the darkness, followed by two others.

  ‘Let me tell you my news.’ The voice on the other end of the phone was lowered so she had to strain to hear.

  ‘My cousin Lorenzo in Viterbo, he finally found out about Jimmy’s mother. It was reported as an accident when she fell into Lake Bolsena from the high rocks. He also got hold of her will. She left everything to Jimmy. House and money. Nothing to the stepfather. So he’s going to claim it back for him, which will be a lot easier now he’s dead. I haven’t told Jimmy yet.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said cautiously, ‘that might be a problem. I think Paul Stone was broke.’

  ‘Oh, drat. That would be a bitch. I had my eye on a nice cottage for him with a double garage that would make a studio.’

  Promising she would find out about Stone’s finances and help by getting Jimmy’s claim pushed hard, she said she and Herk would come down to Glasgow tomorrow.

  ‘He’s sticking to Jimmy as a name, rather than Louis?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Says he can’t go back now. Too late. And he is quite stubborn.’ He sighed and said: ‘See you.’

  She swithered about phoning her agent and decided that sorting out the bag of Stone’s papers and trying to get into his laptop was a priority. An hour later she was little the wiser, having waded through copious financial statements. They could go to Russell, although she had found Stone’s and his mother’s birth certificates and all his marriage certificates, which would be useful. The laptop password defeated her so it would have to wait till London to be handed over to a hacker she knew.

  Summoned downstairs, she was glad to take a break and answered the policeman’s questions briefly. A burly, ruddy-faced figure with his jacket unbuttoned and his tie loosened, he stood by a crackling fire with a whisky in his hand smiling benignly at her. He said one young policeman had been to the keep to confirm that Stone was dead and was standing guard. But they had not sent the ambulance out to the keep or visited it himself since it was dark and therefore dangerous. The morning would do, he assured her. He had looked at Herk’s photograph. She noted the singular. Obviously, Mr Stone had been disturbed in his mind and that was all there was to it. He would report with the evidence to the Procurator Fiscal, who would most likely not take it any further.

  The evening drifted by in a haze of good-humoured bantering from the men and too much alcohol. Tire sat detached from it, her mind racing and her panic rising about not knowing what outlet to aim for with her information. She tried to calm down by reminding
herself that no one else had access to all the papers, the knowledge about his past and the deaths that had followed him in his rise to prominence. It was his ‘you’ll see’ comment that kept bugging her. Had he set up barriers in advance against her publishing what she had found out?

  Late next morning, having been released by the police and taken their farewells of Donnie and Maggie with promises to return, they headed for Inverness airport. An hour later they left the Range Rover in the long-term car park with the key dropped into a box. Inside the terminal, the departure board indicated a delay in their plane to Glasgow due to a tardy incoming flight. They checked in their luggage and collected a coffee to drink outside.

  Huddling against the sleek grey sides of the building with a sharp easterly blowing, Tire could feel her adrenaline pumping despite her hangover, with her to-do list growing ever longer.

  ‘Good morning.’ The well-bred voice made her jump. She turned into the wind to see Jake Harrister standing with a coffee in his hand.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

  He sipped at his coffee, smiled thinly and replied: ‘I understand our erstwhile acquaintance is dead.’

  ‘And you just happened to be up here on holiday, did you?’ she said slowly.

  He laid his paper mug on a metal plate on the wall, tugged at the cuffs of his tweed jacket and surveyed his polished shoes, then said crisply: ‘We were informed by the local police last night since he had connections to important people within the government. So he is on an alert list My brief is to ensure his body is returned to London discreetly.’ He looked over her shoulder into the distance and added flatly: ‘To minimise any adverse publicity.’

  ‘Who are we and who the hell do you work for?’ She took a step towards him, waving her cigarette irritably, which left a shower of sparks as a gust eddied round the terminal.

  He sighed and studied the ground again. ‘I work for Her Majesty’s government.’ He paused. ‘As you well know, in a lowly capacity.’